It's still, for the most part, the exact same show, which is a relief: The fun remains watching a pressure-cooker gathering of a bunch of the alleged "best and brightest," and seeing just how quickly they can act with astounding stupidity. [9 Sep 2004]

Aside from a couple of odd pop-culture references (characters played by Amber Riley and the Common busted out glittering iPads at different points in the show) NBC's The Wiz Live! was far tighter and far more fun to watch than last year's awkward production of "Peter Pan" and 2013's high-rated but wooden "The Sound of Music."

He has always been wrapped a little tight but now he's about to explode, and Chiklis plays it beautifully, making it sound as if he must measure every phrase so that just opening his mouth doesn't release all the frustration in a nuclear blast.

What Southland has, already, is its own swagger, a get-outta-my-way style of moving and talking that says it's going for the raw edges we see on cable shows like "Breaking Bad." Southland pulls it off, too. If Thursday night's premiere episode is an indication how it plans to roll, it's a keeper.

HBO’S new miniseries Parade’s End won’t stop the “Downton Abbey” DTs. But it can soothe the pain with wonderful visuals and superb performances by Benedict Cumberbatch, Rebecca Hall and Adelaide Clemens.

This requires commitment, it requires paying attention and it has few cartoonish interludes to give the audience a breather. It also reminds us the value and satisfaction we can find in a complex production executed well.

House of Cards, like “The West Wing,” has soap and melodrama in its DNA. It also moves at a surprisingly deliberate pace, often seeming to linger on a scene just so it won’t clutter itself up by bringing in too many subplots. Still, the second season maintains the tension of the first season, and the “Bad Boys at Work” sign is still up. Let the binging begin.

Wright, who already has won an Emmy for the role, remains one of the best parts of the series, while Underwood’s bottomless appetite for dark dealing keeps Spacey so deliciously detestable you can’t help but keep rooting for the bad guy to win.

If all "South Park" offered were poo-poo jokes and babes spouting profanity, the show would wear thin awfully fast. It doesn't. The reason is that Parker, Stone and their collaborators actually have done something remarkable with their primitive, construction-paper animation: They have created a wholly new, internally consistent fictional world and have peopled it with distinct, interesting characters. [13 Aug 1997]

The new guest cast is uniformly solid....The whole show is now on its own for the first time, since the previous two seasons were adapted from an Israeli series. That series ran for only two years, so this new In Treatment will have to work from scratch. What it has scratched out so far is impressive.

Rescuing people from burning buildings. Feeding people who are starving. Taking a child no one cared about and teaching that child to read. That’s heroic. The Hero is an entertaining reality show. That’s fine. It’s just not the same thing.

It works as light summer drama, with lots of great banter between the women, and it works as cop drama, since it has put both of them in very dangerous situations at regular intervals. Best of all, though, it keeps peeling away layers on both characters.

Treme, created by "Wire" mastermind David Simon, may not ultimately get to the level of those others, because it's going to take a while to sort out the characters and lay down the themes. It also looks to have a deliberate pace, and it doesn't seem to be setting up for a lot of blood-and-guts action, so it may end up attracting a more cerebral crowd.

The movie deals with Lisa’s death tastefully and sincerely, and the three actresses who play the girls couldn’t be better. They have the trio’s finger-snapping repartee and sisterly rapport down. If the script clunks, and the direction of Charles Stone III lacks the slightest in subtlety or grace, those qualities aren’t what matters. The cray-cray back story is.

Unlike shows that rely on flamboyant judges for much of their color, Top Chef has mostly risen and fallen on the personality and skills of the contestants. So it's off to a good start this time around.

The likable Pete and Myka are a classic match, bickering until they need to stop and work together, which they do. Artie provides both comic relief and a reminder that their job is difficult and dangerous--point also made by Artie's boss, Mrs. Frederic (CCH Pounder). Not too much new here. But there's nothing wrong with taking the old and doing it well.

Human Target was a good wise-guy action adventure last season. It's already looking like a better one this season. The main reason: Two girls, Indira Varma and Janet Montgomery, have crashed the testosterone party.

They also don’t know what’s happening back East, so we don’t start with any crossovers or even cross-references. There’s just the uneasy sense that something is wrong, which for TV drama purposes means something is right.

A look at the first pay cable episode of the iconic kids show reveals that it offers the same mix of fun, education and goofiness that has kept Sesame Street a powerhouse piece of programming for 46 years.

It understands that high school drama can be as serious as it absurd, and as Jenna and her friends enter their junior year, we can see them slowly starting to wrestle with the real and scary question of where it all goes from here.

Writer/director Hugo Blick skillfully walks the hairline between a well-paced adventure thriller and a psychological study that gives us enough time to appreciate the nuances of the character we're watching.

[Genealogy] may not seem like a particularly robust thread for an eight-part series, but O’Dowd, Guest and a wonderful cast of deadpan actors and improv experts spin it into a tapestry of cheery laughter.

Beyond the joke, the show’s premise is encouraging: that being gay is no big deal.... The engine driving this show is female friendship, the kind strong enough to get you through even high school. For Amy and Karma, we want that.

This year Dwight has pretty much buried the impersonator tag, though he still has Elvis posters on his wall, and Memphis Beat has further solidified its standing as one of cable's more engaging police dramas.

A relationship with Julie, which has been percolating for some time, might be just a good cover for Dexter. But it feels more complicated than that, which at the very least reflects good writing and acting.

It all adds up to a dizzying series of cross-plots and so many brief and often odd alliances that some viewers may wonder if they've wandered into "Survivor." On the positive side, it's all done with standard Glee fun, the tongue never far from the cheek, and it's punctuated with upbeat musical numbers.

Happily, Harrelson and McConaughey play the characters well enough, and the script is crafted ingeniously enough, that we want to know where it all goes next--and don't focus on the likelihood it will be no place good.

The trump card of Hollow Crown, of course, is that it was written by Shakespeare--and if the language sounds stilted to modern ears, anyone who listens for more than a few minutes will be properly seduced.

Much of A to Z deals in a different kind of action than most recent sitcoms about young singles, where the only goal often seems to be setting up predictable sex jokes. Because of that, A to Z may seem a little less frenetic. In truth, that’s good.